BUSINESS NEWS LESSONS

The power of scents in consumer products

1 Warmer

a. Work in pairs or groups.

• Write 6 everyday household or body care products you buy that are scented.

• What type of scent does each of these products have?

• Write the type of product and its scent on the lines, e.g., hand soap, French lavender

• Share and compare your answers with the rest of the class.

2 Find the information

a. Skim read the article and make a note of all the scented products as well as the types of scents
mentioned there.

3 Key words

a. Read the definitions and find key words in the article that match them. The paragraph number
is given in brackets to help you.
Check your answers and your understanding of how the words are used by using the same
word to complete the example sentence immediately after each definition.
Then read the complete article to see how each of the key words is used in context.

1. the fact that something is present everywhere (3)

The of mobile phone cameras has ruined the market for disposable

snapshot cameras.
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2. bringing a lot of money (5)

Despite their initial doubts, the shareholders were delighted when the merger turned out to be

very for both companies.

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3. attempts to discover your competitors’ industrial secrets using secret methods (7)

Since the recent case of industrial , the company no longer allows

visitors to take their phones on the factory tour.

4. great skill or ability (7)

She is well-known in the business for her as a trouble shooter.

5. when something is tested thoroughly to make sure that it works as planned (8)

In stage four, the new medicine was on volunteers in their

20s and 30s.

6. something you have that gives you an advantage over, or makes you more successful than,

your competitors (9)

Being able to speak Japanese definitely gave her an over the

other applicants.

7. bring a particular emotion, idea, or memory into your mind. (11)

The designs will hopefully happy childhood memories in many buyers.

8. things that you say to persuade someone to buy something or support you (12)

The entrepreneurs were only allowed ten minutes for their and the

chance to convince the business angels to invest in them.

9. relating to populations (13)

Before we decide whether to open a new branch there, we need to know more about the

of the area.

10. the amount of time between two related events (13)

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Customers have to allow for a short time- between placing their order

and delivery.
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11. the number of people who accept or buy something that is offered (13)

The initial was lower than we had anticipated, but it should improve

next quarter.

12. things that represent a concept or meaning (14)

The increase in the number of vegan options in restaurants is just one of the

of the shift towards people being more aware of the chemicals and

unhealthy practices of factory farming.

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 BUSINESS NEWS LESSONS
Switzerland’s ‘Silicon Valley of smell’
prospers in age of big data
THE PANDEMIC HAS CHANGED HOW PEOPLE WANT THEMSELVES, THEIR CLOTHES AND THEIR HOMES
TO SMELL.
BY SAM JONES
1 Is artificial intelligence already deciding how
you smell?
2 Before the pandemic, it was popular in America
to smell sweet: a growing trend for fruit — even
caramel — scents in consumer products such as
shampoo or detergent had become notable. Quite
what was driving this unpleasantness is not clear.
3 But there are signs of a shift. The Covid-19 pandemic
has changed how people want themselves, their
clothes and their homes to smell — and not just in
America. Now people want to believe everything
they touch is squeaky clean — even antiseptically
so. The astringent ubiquity of rubbing alcohol has
lodged itself in the public smell consciousness, sitting
alongside citruses, menthols and such as a signifier
of hygiene.
4 What people like to smell changes all the
time — more gradually than seismically but with
huge business consequences. Rarely do we stop to
think about how much of our environment — and the
products we consume in it —is scented. But almost
everything is.
5 On the outskirts of Geneva, between the suburbs of
Vernier and Satigny, is proof of how lucrative scent
(and flavour) can be. This is the “Silicon Valley of
smell”, says Gilbert Ghostine, the chief executive of
Firmenich, one of two companies based here that
dominate the way the world smells. The other is
Givaudan. (IFF, a third giant of the sector, is based in
New York).
6 Both Givaudan and Firmenich have a 10-year,
compound annual growth rate in revenues of about
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5 per cent. The pandemic barely dented this.
7 The two are fiercely competitive. Smell espionage is
real and a code of silence surrounds the companies’
clientele. Both Givaudan and Firmenich like to boast
about their technological prowess and the clever
Published by Macmillan Education Ltd. © Macmillan Education Limited, 2022.
things they do.(This extends to food, where the
world’s vegans have a lot to thank them for. So do the
world’s dieters — Firmenich likes to boast it removed
1.2tn calories from food products in 2020 thanks to its
sweeteners and flavour enhancers).
8 The efforts they go to are exacting, almost Willy
Wonka*-like. In their laboratories outside Geneva are
whole rooms filled with dozens of washing machines,
in which different detergents and scents are trialled on
regulation sets of undergarments, towels and T-shirts.
Others are full of drying racks to see what new scents
smell like as laundry dries.
9 But the real edge these companies have is in knowing
what their customers want. When it comes to staying
ahead of slow, hidden shifts in the smell-desires of
global consumers, data are invaluable.
10 Last month, Firmenich launched its “scentmate”
portal. Customers no longer need to liaise with an
expensive perfumer to work out what they want their
new candle, washing powder or moisturiser to smell
like. They can simply upload their preferences to the
portal — Something fresh? Something heady? — and
an algorithm will churn out recommendations.
11 This is particularly powerful as the world globalises,
an key driver of sector growth. The extent to which
products need to be adapted to local cultural tastes
and expectations is more and more important.
Fragrances that evoke air-dried clothing and
urban-escapism might be very different in England
than, say, Thailand.
12 So the portal allows customers to specify other
factors such as geography and price, too, in order to
recommend scents to suit needs. It is backed up by
a constant stream of consumer data, gathered from
testing panels across the world. Givaudan has also
identified data and digitisation as vital to transforming
how it pitches and sells its scents.
Continued on next page
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 BUSINESS NEWS LESSONS

13 This big data of smell might show, for example, that 15 This could also tell us something about the way AI
clove is becoming a more popular aroma among east and big data will impact our lives more broadly. The
London hipsters in high-end cosmetics —and that big social divide in the future may be between those
historically that market has led scent preferences in who can afford to be original, and those whose tastes
Berlin among a similar demographic, with perhaps are shaped by algorithms.
a two-year lag time before take-up in broader
* Willy Wonka = a fictional character from Roald Dahl’s 1964
consumer markets. children’s novels Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie
and the Great Glass Elevator. He is the eccentric owner of the
14 All of which is not to say that the perfumers’ art is Wonka Chocolate Factory.
over. In fine fragrance, the noses of scent’s Silicon
Valley are being asked to source ever more unusual
and aggressive smells. Uniqueness and originality
are the signifiers of elite status. So much so that even
“animalistic” and “faecal”’ smells are making their
way — albeit in small amounts — into expensive new
fragrances, one perfumer told me. Scentmate could
not predict that.

Sam Jones, 10 August 2021.

© The Financial Times.
All rights reserved.
Articles republished from the Financial Times.
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 BUSINESS NEWS LESSONS

4 Understanding the article

a. Are these sentences True or False according to the information in the article? Tick (✓) the
sentences that are true. Rewrite and correct any that are false.

1. The pandemic changed the way consumers prefer their household products to smell.

2. The author misses the sweet smell many products had before the pandemic.

3. Along with globalization, the scents used in products are becoming increasingly standardized.

4. Information from around the globe is being gathered and used by the scent industry to create
algorithms that help producers decide how to scent their products for different markets.

5. The top three companies working in the field of scent, taste, and flavour are all based
in Switzerland.

6. Like most businesses, the Swiss scent companies suffered large financial losses due to
the pandemic.

7. By watching preferences in one trend-setting country, scents are adapted to suit the wishes of that
demographic in other countries that are known to follow trends.

8. Algorithms and technology in the scent industry signify an end to the human art of perfumery.

9. High-end consumers like to show their status through the originality of their scented products
and fragrances.

10. In the future, only those with a lot of money to spend are likely to have homes that smell different
to everyone else’s in their area.
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 BUSINESS NEWS LESSONS

5 Business language

a. Connect the words on the left and right to make useful business language. Then find and circle
each word pair or phrase in the article to check your answers.
Talk about the meaning of each and look up any you do not know.

1. squeaky dented (something)

2. sitting divide

3. compound annual alongside

4. barely stream of …

5. a code of driver

6. a key clean

7. a constant growth

8. social silence

b. Write two sentences for each word pair or phrase. The first sentence (a) should be about the
article, and the second (b) should be about a different topic.

1.a.

1.b.

2.a.

2.b.

3.a.

3.b.

4.a.

4.b.

5.a.

5.b.

6.a.
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6.b.

7.a.

7.b.

8.a.

8.b.
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6 Discussion

a. Discuss these questions.

• How important is scent when you buy a product?

• Are there any products that you purposely do not buy because you find the scent off-putting
or unpleasant?

• How interested are you in being able to create your own room spray or personalized perfume?

• How much more would you be willing to pay for a body care product that is especially scented to
your liking?

• In addition to the scents used in products, how else might scents be used to encourage people to
spend time (and money) in a particular shop, spa, gym, café, hotel, etc.?

• The article gives an example of particular scents aimed at hipsters. Talk about the changes and
differences you have noticed in scents used in products aimed at your grandparents, in those
aimed at your parents, those aimed at your age group, and those aimed at consumers younger
than you. Discuss not only the type of scents, but also the intensity of the scents, and how they
are sourced and produced.

7 Wider business theme – Redesigning product features

a. Work through the steps of this task with a partner and finally present your ideas and product
suggestions to the rest of the group.

You work for a company producing electrical air fresheners. You specialise in floral scents and your
target demographic are middle class suburban housewives. However, as the pandemic and lockdowns
are dragging on, you have noticed a decline in sales, despite the fact that your target customer has
spent more time at home. The market research and the new trends in the industry have shown that
floral scents are giving way to more crisp and clean ones. You have been tasked with redesigning the
two top selling products. Think about:

• How you can change the scent to include the new trends but not lose the staple floral smell.

• How you will market this change to your core customers.

• How you could use this change to market the new product to a new group of customers. Who
could these customers be? What kind of advertising would attract them?
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